


the old piano doesn't play anymore

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20061934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: The churches are all empty now.





	the old piano doesn't play anymore

France stumbles into the church, bottle in hand.

it’s maybe three in the morning, a Saturday night (part of him thinks it’s so late it almost happens to be Sunday), hot summer air filtering in from the stained glass windows that hands high above his head. He’s three bottles of wine down, and the statues are starting to look alive.

The marble is carved black, dark wooden podiums meant only for angels and clergy refracting light with shiny, unused polish. The statues are beautiful- all suffering and God and greatness and sacrifice. If he closes his eyes for long enough, he can remember when they were built. It’s eerie, silent.

_Holy men and high held crosses, peasants working for dimes and pennies, marble and marble and preaching words that he can still recall like a child’s lullaby. _

Those days are gone now, he thinks, bottle of wine clattering on the marble with a loud cling. Glass fractures all over the floor, pristine white marble staining red.

He shrugs, or at least attempts to, instead finding he lands knees first on the ground, a hand catching on one of the seats of the pews, the other palm first on the ground.

The bottle of wine will be cleaned tomorrow, when the janitor arrives. Likely after the first preaching sermon, from how many people arrive.

France stares at the statue in from of him. Christ, arms spread and nailed on his cross, face depicted in everlasting suffering. It’s strange to think France was alive before the man was born, that he’d lived so long without the religion his whole country used to know like the back of his hand.

Christ’s eyes are blank as he stares at France. The blood from his nailed hands and feet is black, carved from marble with the farcical idea shared by religious men that he would be forever worshipped here, in this church, in this country.

When was the last time France had prayed?

He believes it was when Paris was taken, but he cannot properly recall. It all blurs into one panorama of penance, colours splayed behind his eyes like scattered pieces of a canvas, shattered fragments forgotten in the river of time.

But his hands fall to clasp in front of him, his knees ache from pressing to the hard floor instead of the pews. There’s no Bible in his hand, no preacher recounting sermons, not even the ring of a church bell; it’s just him and memories.

He doesn’t know what he’s praying for. The stature stares down at him and it’s like God’s disappointment, _you lost your way, you strayed from mine. _He swallows; it feels like it’s been centuries since he heard that voice in his head.

His hands are trembling when he looks up, lip bitten in, wondering.

_Perhaps God got in the way of more important things, _he thinks, before a pang in the back of his mind, more distant than it used to be, _God is the important thing, _and then, _but that’s not the right God. _

It makes him want to tear his hair out. They can’t agree on anything anymore; well, his people never really could. But it seems so prominent these days; division lines spreading out beneath their feet until the cracks are too deep to even discuss the breaking earth under their feet.

The church looms over him, statues spread out evenly enough to make one claustrophobic of their stares.

France brings himself to his feet, standing up slowly and only with the help of the pew’s edge.

The statues stare.

Slowly, he stands up and stares back.

_They were built to last, _he thinks, mind stumbling over words like his hand misses the bottle of wine.

_Built to last, but nothing lasts forever. _It’s like a lullaby, almost.

_Nothing lasts forever. _

Not even him, he thinks, but some things are harder to kill.


End file.
